Imperial ruins

Imperial ruins, 1999

The Kaiserbauu ruin , originally planned as an airport hotel , was the ruin of a hotel next to the A 59 in Troisdorf that was started by the building contractor Franz Kaiser (Kaiser Baustuppe, Cologne) in the early 1970s but never completed . It stood empty for almost three decades.

history

Part of the HA Schult installation

The planning went back to 1970, construction began in 1974, the shell was completed in 1975. With 18 floors and a planned 1,200 hotel beds as well as 600 apartments, it was close to Cologne / Bonn Airport . Ultimately, further work stopped due to disagreements between the city of Troisdorf and the construction company. Kaiser himself got into economic difficulties.

The ruins became the city's landmark. During state visits, the ruins of the imperial building were held by a hundred police, depending on the level of risk of the respective state guest. There were fears of attacks from the building on the nearby A 59 . The Spich junction of the A 59, required for the operation of the hotel, went into operation in 1996.

In 1999, the action artist HA Schult turned it into the Hotel Europa . The front of the building was hung with pictures of 130 personalities who shaped Europe .

On May 13, 2001 at 8:01 a.m. CEST , the ruins of the imperial building were blown up in front of 20,000 spectators. The demolition and the extensive preparations were documented by WDR in an episode of the program with the mouse .

See also

• Unfinished structures

Web links

Commons : Kaiserbauruine  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Gallery with old pictures of the imperial building
• The demolition of the Kaiserbau on May 13, 2001
• Entry on the ruins of the imperial building on Rotter See (Airport Hotel, Hotel Europa) in the " KuLaDig " database of the Rhineland Regional Association (with a video of the demolition on May 13, 2001)
• André Ears: A tear for concrete - Sentimental thoughts on saying goodbye to the Kaiserbau ( Memento from April 20, 2017 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cologne-Troisdorf Airport Hotel Kaiserbau. Kaiser assembly, archived from the original on October 8, 2013 ; Retrieved on August 1, 2017 (chronology of the imperial building from the point of view of the construction company). 
2. ↑ Klaus Elsen: Emperor's Unfinished Survived his empire. In: General-Anzeiger (Bonn). May 3, 2001, accessed August 1, 2017 . 

Coordinates: 50 ° 48 ′ 49 ″  N , 7 ° 6 ′ 56 ″  E